JANUARY 7, 2015 11:57 AM

Dont Blame the Charlie Hebdo Mass Murder on

Extremism
Intolerance for free expression is rooted in classical Islam.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Image from video footage of the attackers.

There are now at least twelve confirmed dead in the terrorist

attack carried out by at least three jihadist gunmen against the
Paris office of Charlie Hebdo. While it
practices equal-opportunity satire, lampooning
Islam has proved lethal for the magazine, just
as it has for so many others who dare to
exercise the bedrock Western liberty of free
expression. Charlie Hebdos offices were
firebombed in 2011 over a caricature of
Andrew C. McCarthy

Mohammed that depicted him saying, 100 lashes if you dont

die from laughter.

The cartoon was obviously referring to sharia, Islams legal code

and totalitarian framework. Dont take my word for it. Just flip
through Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic
Sacred Law, the authoritative sharia manual. You will find a
number of offenses for which flagellation is the prescribed
penalty.
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To take just a couple of examples, the penalty for drinking is to

be scourged forty stripes, although the caliph (the Islamic ruler)
is authorized to increase this to 80 stripes although he must
pay an indemnity if death results. . . . Pretty moderate, right?
(Reliance, p. 617, sec. o16.3.) For adultery the penalty consists
of being scourged one hundred stripes and thats if the
adulterer is not considered to have the capacity to remain
chaste (e.g., if she is prepubescent at the time of marital
intercourse. If the offender is someone with the capacity to
remain chaste, then he or she is stoned to death. (Reliance, p.
610, sec. o12.2.)
What Charlie Hebdo has satirized is a savage reality. That
reality was visited on the magazine again today. As night
follows day, progressive governments in Europe and the United
States are already straining to pretend that this latest atrocity is
the wanton work of violent extremists, utterly unrelated to
Islam. You are to believe, then, that Franois Hollande, Barack
Obama, David Cameron, and their cohort of non-Muslim
Islamophiles are better versed in sharia than the Muslim scholars
whove dedicated their lives to its study and have endorsed such
scholarly works as Reliance.

Let me repeat what I have detailed here before: Al-Qaeda and

the Islamic State did not make up sharia law. Islam did. We can
keep our heads tucked snug in the sand, or we can recognize the
source of the problem.
As I detailed in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic
Democracy, the literalist construction of sharia that Islamic
supremacists seek to enforce is literal precisely because it
comes from Islamic scripture, not from some purportedly
extremist fabrication of Islam. Moreover, this classical
sharia is enthusiastically endorsed in principle by several of the
most influential institutions in the Islamic Middle East, which
explains why it is routinely put into practice when Islamists are
given or seize the opportunity to rule over a territory.
Reliance is not some al-Qaeda or Islamic State pamphlet. It is a
renowned explication of sharias provisions and their undeniable
roots in Muslim scripture. In the English translation, before you
get to chapter and verse, there are formal endorsements,
including one from the International Institute of Islamic
Thought a U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood think tank begun
in the early Eighties (and to which American administrations of
both parties have resorted as an exemplar of moderation).
Perhaps more significantly, there is also an endorsement from
the Islamic Research Academy at al Azhar University, the
ancient seat of Sunni learning to which President Obama
famously turned to co-sponsor his cloyingly deceptive 2009
speech on relations between Islam and the West.
In their endorsement, the al-Azhar scholars wrote:

We certify that the . . . translation corresponds to the Arabic

original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox
Sunni Community. . . . There is no objection to printing it and
circulating it. . . . May Allah give you success in serving Sacred
Knowledge and the religion.

There could be no more coveted stamp of scholarly approval in

Islam.
Charlie Hebdo, of course, is in the business of cartoon caricature
for satirical purposes. That is a time-honored method of
expression, political and otherwise, in the West. That is in stark
contrast to how such expression is viewed by Islam. Here, as I
summarized in my book Spring Fever quoted verbatim and
supported by citations is what Reliance has to say about such
visual art forms:
It is forbidden to make pictures of animate life, for doing so
imitates the creative act of Allah Most High; Whoever makes a
picture, Allah shall torture him with it on the Day of Judgment until
he can breathe life into it, and he will never be able to.
(Reliance w50.0 & ff.)

Nor is visual depiction alone in drawing sharias wrath.

Musical instruments of all types are unlawful.
As Reliance elaborates, singing is generally prohibited (for
song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does
herbage), and on the Day of Resurrection Allah will pour
molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a
songstress. There is an exception, though: If unaccompanied by
musical instruments, song and poetry drawn from Islamic
scripture and encouraging obedience to Allah are permissible.

Ironically, although music is generally forbidden, dancing is

permissible unless it is languid, like the movements of the
effeminate. (Reliance r40.0 &ff.)
Understand, the prohibitions just described apply to artistic
expression in general; Islam need not be lampooned for
caricatures to run afoul of sharia. With that hostile
predisposition in mind, lets now consider Islams draconian
treatment of expression that renounces Islam, belittles it or, in
the slightest way, casts it in an unfavorable light:
Apostasy from Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief for which the penalty is death (When a
person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to
be killed). (Reliance o8.0 & ff.)
Apostasy occurs not only when a Muslim renounces Islam but also, among other things, when a
Muslim appears to worship an idol, when he is heard to speak words that imply unbelief, when
he makes statements that appear to deny or revile Allah or the prophet Mohammed, when he is
heard to deny the obligatory character of something which by consensus of Muslims is part of
Islam, and when he is heard to be sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law.
(Reliance o8.7; see also p9.0 & ff.)

It is worth pausing to mull these latter prohibitions against

denying or reviling any aspect of Islam, Allah, or the prophet.
The call to kill apostates for such offensesobviously applies with
equal or greater force to non-Muslims, who are pervasively
treated far worse than Muslims are by sharia. See, for example,
the infamous verse 29 from Sura 9, the Korans most bellicose
chapter:
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold forbidden which had been
forbidden by Allah and his Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the

people of the book [i.e., Christians and Jews], until they pay the jizya [the poll tax imposed on
non-believers for the privilege of living in the Islamic state] and feel themselves subdued.

While insipid Western leaders cannot admonish us often enough

that the future must not belong to those who slander the
prophet of Islam, the French satirical magazine has offered a
different take one rooted in the cherished Western belief that
examination in the light of day, rather than willful blindness, is
the path to real understanding. In that tradition, a few other
choice aspects of sharia, detailed by Muslim scholars
in Reliance, are worth reviewing:
Jihad means to war against non-Muslims. (Reliance o9.0.)
It is an annual requirement to donate a portion of ones income
to the betterment of the ummah (an obligation called zakat,
which is usually, and inaccurately, translated as charity); of
this annual donation, one-eighth must be given to those fighting
for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military
operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army
roster. . . . They are given enough to suffice them for the
operation even if they are affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing
and expenses. (Reliance, h8.117.)
As commanded in the aforementioned Sura 9:29, non-Muslims
are permitted to live in an Islamic state only if they follow the
rules of Islam, pay the non-Muslim poll tax, and comply with
various conditions designed to remind them that they have been
subdued, such as wearing distinctive clothing, keeping to one
side of the street, not being greeted with Peace be with you
(as-Salamu alaykum), not being permitted to build as high as

or higher than Muslims, and being forbidden to build new

churches, recite prayers aloud, or make public displays of their
funerals or feast-days. (Reliance o11.0 & ff.)
Offenses committed against Muslims, including murder, are
more serious than offenses committed against non-Muslims.
(Reliance o1.0 & ff; p2.0-1.)
The penalty for spying against Muslims is death.
(Reliance p50.0 & ff; p74.0 & ff.)
The penalty for homosexual activity (sodomy and
lesbianism) is death. (Reliance p17.0 & ff.)
A Muslim woman may marry only a Muslim man; a Muslim
man may marry up to four women, who may be Muslim,
Christian, or Jewish (but no apostates from Islam).
(Reliance m6.0 & ff. Marriage.)
A woman is required to be obedient to her husband and is
prohibited from leaving the marital home without permission; if
permitted to go out, she must conceal her figure or alter it to a
form unlikely to draw looks from men or attract them.
(Reliance p42.0 & ff.)
A non-Muslim may not be awarded custody of a Muslim child.
(Reliancem13.23.)
A woman has no right of custody of her child from a previous
marriage when she remarries because married life will occupy
her with fulfilling the rights of her husband and prevent her from
tending to the child. (Reliance m13.4.)

The penalty for theft is amputation of the right hand.

(Reliance o14.0.)
The penalty for accepting interest (usurious gain) is death
(i.e., to be considered in a state of war against Allah).
(Reliance p7.0 & ff.)
The testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man.
(Reliance o24.7.)
If a case involves an allegation of fornication (including rape),
then it requires four male witnesses. (Reliance o24.9.)
The establishment of a caliphate is obligatory, and the caliph
must be Muslim and male. The Prophet . . . said, Men are
already destroyed when they obey women. (Reliance o25.0 &
ff; see also p28.0, on Mohammeds condemnation of masculine
women and effeminate men.)
This is not violent extremist doctrine. This is Islamic doctrine
sharia, authoritatively explained and endorsed. Millions of
Muslims, particularly in the West, do not abide by it and are
working heroically and at great risk to themselves to
marginalize or supersede it. Of course we should admire and
help them. That, however, is not a reason to pretend that this
doctrine does not exist. It is, furthermore, suicidal to ignore the
fact that, because this doctrine is rooted in scripture and
endorsed by influential scholars, some Muslims are going to act
on it, and many millions more will support them.
This anti-liberty, supremacist, repulsively discriminatory, and
sadly mainstream interpretation of Islam must be acknowledged

and confronted. In its way, that is what Charlie Hebdo had been
attempting to do while, to their lasting shame, governments
in the United States and Europe have been working with Islamist
states to promote sharia blasphemy standards. That needs to end.
The future must not belong to those who brutalize free
expression in the name of Islam.
Andrew C. McCarthy is a policy fellow at the National
Review Institute. His latest book is Faithless Execution: Building
the Political Case for Obamas Impeachment.